Nowadays, it seems like you simply cannot go anywhere without being forced to listen to strangers blathering on about nothing.

Recently, I was in the hot tub at my LA Fitness gym after working out, and an older guy got in beside me wearing bathing trunks and a WWII vet baseball cap. We won’t even get into the issue of why he was wearing a baseball cap at an indoor pool – that’s an entirely different sartorial discussion – but what irked me was when he pulled out his cellphone and started a loud conversation with someone who appeared to be his adult son. On his speakerphone.

Which was positioned about four inches from my face.

Now, I’m not going to say this was annoying. Let’s just say I managed to restrain myself from grabbing the phone and throwing it over into the main swimming pool, but only at the expense of my blood pressure.

I’m not opposed to people having conversations in the hot tub. But when they’re conversing in front of you, there’s the possibility that I might join in. It’s a public event. “Yes, I’ve been to that restaurant. I liked the eggplant,” I’ve been known to say. And don’t get on me about eggplant. It’s good stuff.

But the difference is that a phone conversation is ostensibly a private event. Not a group one. I don’t want to be privy to your private phone call, and I certainly don’t want to have it shoved in my face in the hot tub.

I suggested to the hatted gentleman that maybe he wanted to get out of the hot tub and carry on his conversation elsewhere. Or at least take it off speaker. Here was his cogent and carefully crafted reply:

“Shut up.”

I guess I can be happy he didn’t say, “Shut up, b—-,” but pretty sure that’s what he was thinking.

And it did shut me up, because I was dumbfounded. How does one even respond to that?

Now, those of you who know me are saying to yourselves, “Yeah, Marla Jo, but you are the loudest person we know and you never shut up.”

That is a bald-faced lie. I do shut up. I do not use my phone in the gym’s hot tub, or in the sauna (see my earlier column about this one) nor in doctors’ waiting rooms, or anywhere where there’s a big sign on the wall that says “No cell phone use.” (Where there’s nearly always someone sitting under the sign, talking on the phone.)

I also shut up at concerts, because I paid hard-earned money to buy a ticket to the show, and I actually want to hear what’s going on on-stage.

This was just on my mind, because a reader asked me why people think it’s OK to get up and walk around during rock concerts, and also why they talk so much.

I don’t have any problem with walking around during an arena concert, that’s what arenas were built for. Getting another beer, answering the call of nature and picking up some nachos. I like jalapeños on mine, in case you’re sitting next to me. Though if you do it in front of me at the opera, I’ll stab you with my leftover chopsticks.

Talking, however, is another matter. It gobsmacks me how many people – and this means you – feel the purpose of an instrumental number or a quiet ballad on stage is only to serve as the backdrop for their loud conversations.

I can only assume that they don’t realize some people might actually want to hear the music. Hello. The music that they paid a ridiculously vast sum of money to enjoy.

I mean, it’s all very interesting to eavesdrop on your fascinating chatter about your friend’s new lawnmower and all, but I didn’t pay for that, so it can wait until later.

Then, there are the drunks. Have you ever noticed that after one beer people’s conversations go up several decibels in volume? The next thing you know, you’re desperately trying to hear Springsteen sing “Born To Run,” but you can’t because the guy behind you is shouting to his friend about the first time he ever heard the song. Shouting. In my ear. Because he wants to be heard over the music. Um, no.

Dude, I could not care less about your personal memories of The Boss. If you absolutely must convey this vital information to your friend, please do it between songs and into his ear, not mine.

At a concert, the only noise I want to hear is coming from the stage, not your mouth.

Marla Jo Fisher was a workaholic hard news reporter before she adopted two children from foster care at age 46, picked up a scruffy dog along the way and somehow managed to keep them all alive, at least so far. She now writes the Frumpy Middle-Age Mom humor column that appears in the Orange County Register weekly. Due to her status as the cheapest person alive, she also writes about deals and bargains for the Register, including her Cheapo Travel column which also runs in newspapers around the country. When she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's usually traveling somewhere cheaply and writing about it.